Fox Guest Chris Plante Claims Obama Not Interested In Lowering Deficit After He Lowered The Deficit

Frequent Fox guest Chris Plante falsely claimed that President Obama isn't interested in working with Republicans to reduce the deficit, ignoring Obama's efforts to reduce the budget through bipartisan efforts like the Budget Control Act of 2011.

On the September 12 edition of America Live, host Martha MacCallum discussed the upcoming budget debate in Congress with conservative radio host Chris Plante. After MacCallum asked whether the debate will lead to a government shutdown, Plante said that "the president claims he wants to cut spending, the man with the trillion dollar deficits," and blame Republicans. Plante added that Obama "doesn't want to do anything reasonable to get our spending under control":

But, Obama has worked with congressional members of both parties to decrease the deficit. President Obama signed the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) explained will reduce discretionary spending by "more than $1 trillion over the ten years from 2012 through 2021."

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that the deficit for the 2013 budget will be the smallest since the recession began, and that spending as a percentage of GDP has fallen continually during Obama's tenure:

If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, CBO estimates, the smallest shortfall since 2008. Relative to the size of the economy, the deficit this year--at 4.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)--will be less than half as large as the shortfall in 2009, which was 10.1 percent of GDP.

The CBO also included graphics that showed the budget decreases from recession-era levels, as a percentage of GDP, projected to 2023: